


Rude Awakening

by toasterness



Series: Late Night Rain [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But They're Both In Love, But mostly fluff, Gavin Free Is Bad At Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood, Mutual Pining, Protective Ryan Haywood, Ryan Haywood Is Bad At Feelings, Self-Indulgent, The Author Regrets Nothing, They're Both Big Dummies, This Is Very Trope Heavy, and i don't care, oblivious idiots, so it's all good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22414402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toasterness/pseuds/toasterness
Summary: Before Gavin could protest, the gent moved towards the bathroom to grab a towel. When he returned, a small puddle of water had formed below Gavin, who somehow looked even more miserable than before. He barely reacted when Ryan draped the towel around his shoulders."Alright, explain yourself."Gavin continued to look guilty as he pulled the towel around himself like a protective shield. "I was, er, I was out on a little solo job and it kinda got away from me?"Ryan just stared at him skeptically.ORRyan hates being woken up in the middle of the night and Gavin is really bad at feelings.
Relationships: Gavin Free/Ryan Haywood
Series: Late Night Rain [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665286
Comments: 15
Kudos: 93





	Rude Awakening

Objectively, 2:00 am is a terrible time to be abruptly jolted awake. Subjectively, for one Ryan Haywood, 2:00 am is the literal worst time to be awake in general. So it goes without saying that when he heard a knock at his door and turned to see his bedside clock saying it was 2:16 in the morning, he was less than happy. Really, really unhappy, in fact. Truly, completely, utterly pissed off.

Whoever was knocking at the door wasn't really giving it much force but Ryan was a light sleeper – had to be, in his line of work. Didn't take much to get him up and awake. He wasn't expecting anyone, especially not this early, and couldn't think of anyone who would risk waking him up on his day off. He didn't stay at his own place that often – the penthouse was his normal haunt – but sometimes he like to be alone. It certainly wasn't any of the crew, who were very aware of how unpleasant he could be if his sleep was disrupted. There would be more than hell to pay for the person on the other side of the door.

It had been raining nonstop all night and Ryan was resolved to just ignore the knocker, focus on the sound of the rain on his window, and go back to sleep, but clearly that wasn't in the cards; another couple soft raps on the door to his apartment reached his ears and he had the overwhelming feeling that he would have to answer it no matter what. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for renting a studio instead of a unit with another door separating him from the hall.

With a low grumble, he slung his legs over the edge of his bed and made his way to the door. It only barely registered that all he was wearing was a ratty t-shirt and a pair of briefs (he was never worried about modesty before, why start now?). He bent down a little to look through the peep hole and froze with surprise; on the other side of the door stood Gavin, absolutely soaking wet.

Several locks later, Ryan opened the door. Gavin's face was a combination of embarrassment, sheepishness, and something akin to misery, a small guilty tilt to his lips as he looked up. There wasn't a spot on him that wasn't dripping and he was slightly hunched over, arms across his chest. Ryan watched as the lad's shoulders shook slightly with cold shivers.

"Hello Ryan."

Ryan stared at him, anger morphing into confusion and only mild annoyance. "What are you doing here?"

"Well," Gavin started, glancing down at himself. "I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd nip by, maybe dry off."

"Gavin, it's past two am, what the hell is going on? You're soaked!"

The lad in question shrugged lightly. "It's nothing, just a little rain. Could do with a towel though?"

Ryan pulled the door open wider with a sigh. "Get in here before you freeze."

Gavin practically lurched forward into the apartment. His steps were uneven, Ryan observed, something about his body moving wrong. He decided not to mention it and just closed the door behind them.

"I'm gonna grab you a towel and then you're gonna explain what happened."

Gavin flinched. "Really, Ryan, I'm fine, just a bit wet."

"No buts, Gav. Wait right here."

Before Gavin could protest, the gent moved towards the bathroom to grab a towel. When he returned, a small puddle of water had formed below Gavin, who somehow looked even more miserable than before. He barely reacted when Ryan draped the towel around his shoulders.

"Alright, explain yourself."

Gavin continued to look guilty as he pulled the towel around himself like a protective shield. "I was, er, I was out on a little solo job and it kinda got away from me?"

Ryan just stared at him skeptically.

"What? It happens to the best of us!"

"Gav, explain to me how that leads to you looking half drowned."

"Ah." The younger man hunched in on himself even more. "They might have stolen my car? Maybe?"

There was part of Ryan that wanted to laugh; how could Gavin, one of the most experienced criminals in Los Santos, have let someone steal his car while he was on a job? The shear absurdity of it was almost hilarious. But there was something in his eyes, something that Ryan couldn't quite place, that made him pause. He looked so cold too, his skin pale and covered in goosebumps. Ryan couldn’t just leave him with just a towel.

"Bathroom. Now."

Gavin's shoulders slumped some more but he followed Ryan's instructions. The older man turned on the shower to let the water heat up and turned to face the lad. Gavin stood there looking nervous; what in the world did he have to be nervous about? 

Ryan gestured to the shower and went to the door, preparing to leave him to it. "Get in, you're making me cold just looking at you."

When Gavin started shifting to take off the towel and his sodden clothes, Ryan glanced back and couldn't help but notice how slowly the lad moved and how he kept flinching when he twisted to take his jacket off. Just as he was about to close the door, he caught glimpse of a dark red stain on the side of Gavin's t-shirt and immediately turned back around to approach him.

"What actually happened, Gav. And don’t lie because I can _see_ that you’re not alright."

The younger man jolted slightly and looked up at Ryan like a deer caught in headlights. "It's nothing, I'm fine-" Ryan kept moving forward, reaching towards the edge of the lad's shirt. "Really, Ryan, it's just a scratch-"

But when Ryan lifted the wet shirt, it wasn't just a scratch that he saw; just above Gavin’s hip bone stretching upwards and back for about eight inches was a fairly deep gash, blood only semi-clotted around the edges while most of it was smeared over the surrounding skin from the rain. A small whimper escaped as he was pushed to sit down on the toilet seat. Ryan turned off the shower, pulled a wash cloth from the towel rack, and wet it in the sink.

"Shirt off," he demanded, eyes blazing. 

Gavin complied, a pleading look in his eyes. "I'm ok-"

"Shut up," Ryan growled. "I'm cleaning this out and you're gonna tell me what exactly went down."

Gavin didn't bother protesting; he just sat there, shivering slightly, as Ryan delicately scrubbed around the wound and picked out tiny bits of debris that had collected in it. He tried to be as gentle as he could but Gavin still flinched when the cloth touched the edges of the cut. The lad was lucky it wasn't any deeper than it was.

After several minutes of silence, Ryan's patience ran out. "Start talking."

Gavin sighed heavily, refusing to look down to where Ryan was working. He took several deep breaths before speaking, clearly reluctant to say anything. His voice had a small tremor.

"They stole my car while I was getting the shit kicked outta me," he said haltingly with pain lacing his tone, skin twitching. "Thought it'd be funny to 'teach me a lesson' or some shite. Even gave me this lovely souvenir for my time."

Gavin gestured down to where Ryan was still cleaning the slash wound. The gent hummed in response but forced his fingers to work more gently.

"Turns out your place was just a couple blocks away and I knew you were taking the night of sooo..."

Ryan put the washcloth down. "You thought you'd come and get my floors all wet?"

"Something like that, I guess."

Ryan stood up finally and reached into the shower to turn the water back on. He snagged a couple more clean towels from under the sink and placed them on the counter. Then he looked expectantly at Gavin.

"Well, don't rack up my water bill."

Gavin jerked as if he'd been startled awake. "Er, yeah, right, shower."

"As soon as you're done, I'm wrapping you up in so many bandages you'll be forced to actually sit still for more than a day."

Ryan swore he saw the tips of Gavin's ears go pink as he stepped behind the curtain with a soft 'thanks'.

While he waited for the lad to finish, Ryan went to his dresser to pick out some clothes that had the best chance of fitting his thin frame. The gent was much larger than his younger counterpart, so it proved to be a small challenge; the only clothing he had that would be even remotely close to Gavin's size was still going to be too big. It's not like the lad wasn't tall but Ryan had a significant amount of bulk comparatively. It was part of what made the Vagabond so intimidating. He also grabbed himself a pair of checked pajama bottoms; it felt odd to be helping Gavin the way he was and also be walking around in his underwear.

In the end, he went with a pair of grey sweat pants and an old band hoodie from his high school days that he just couldn't bring himself to get rid of. When he opened the bathroom door to put them on the counter for later, he noted that Gavin's silhouette through the curtain was standing perfectly still while directly under the stream of hot water. Ryan knew something was up but he didn't know how to approach the subject, especially with how private Gavin tended to be. Maybe when he finished patching him up.

On that note, Ryan went to his closet and pulled out his (quite sizable) first aid kit that Jack had put together and gifted to him last Christmas. He placed it on the coffee table before moving to the kitchen area to start the kettle. He pulled out two mugs and prepared the tea – green for him, English breakfast for Gavin. It finished boiling just as he heard the shower turn off.

The bathroom door soon opened and Gavin's face peaked out. "Any chance we can avoid stitches?"

"Not even a little," Ryan replied as he grabbed the aid kit and walked into the bathroom.

Gavin had wrapped one of the larger towels tightly around his waist and was standing in the middle of the tiny room awkwardly. With a grunt, Ryan moved forward, put his arms around the lad, and lifted him gently up onto the sink counter. The lad gave a little squeak at the movement but complied in the re-positioning. There was that pink to his skin like before that couldn't quite be blamed on the hot water.

The needle that Ryan pulled out of the kit was long and slightly curved. He wiped it down with an alcohol wipe before threading some sterile stitching through its eye.

"Sorry in advance," he mumbled.

Gavin just gave a short huff of humorless laughter. "Not like you haven't patched me up before."

Which, yeah, Ryan knew – how could he forget? – but this time there was a growing feeling in his gut that he couldn't put a name to. Something about the way Gavin's breath hitched more than could be explained by pain when he put his hands on the skin of the younger man's hip bone. Something about the sound of his heartbeat so close to his ear. Something about him sitting in nothing but a towel in his bathroom in the middle of the night. It made focusing on the task at hand difficult.

But he managed. Gavin didn't say a word as he stitched him up, didn't make a sound when he wrapped gauze and bandaging around his middle. It was silent but for the sounds of their collective breathing. It was almost a relief to Ryan when he was finished and could move away; he was beginning to feel too hot around the edges, his proximity to the younger man doing strange things to his heart that he wasn't familiar with.

"I couldn't find anything your size so these will have to do," he managed to rasp out, pointing to the clothes he'd put on the counter earlier. "Come out when you're ready; I'm making tea."

Gavin just nodded, sliding himself back to the floor and grabbing the sweatpants first. Ryan left him to it to go back to the kitchen, quietly closing the bathroom door behind himself.

The water in the kettle had cooled too much to properly steep the tea so he turned it back on. Within a minute, it was boiling again, so he poured it into the mugs and set about preparing Gavin's just the way he liked it – two sugars and a splash of cream. He wasn't sure when he'd memorized this little detail about his friend but there it was.

But then he was thinking about all of the other things he'd cataloged away about the younger man: the way his eyes lit up when he talked about his latest technological conquest, or the confident gate he adopted when out on a job, or the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed the hardest. He was so caught up in these little details that he almost missed the man in question coming out of the bathroom.

Ryan swore his heart actually stopped at the site of Gavin wearing his clothes: the sweatpants were slung low on his bony hips and the sleeves of the hoodie were so long that the lad had tucked his fingers into their ends like a child. His damp hair dripped a little under the massive hood that he’d put up. It took Ryan a full twenty seconds to pull himself together enough to wave his hand in the direction of the couch, mouth dry and incapable of forming words. He grabbed the tea and followed, setting them down on the small coffee table in front of it.

"How're you, uh, feeling?" He had to stop to clear his throat. "Bandages not too tight?"

Gavin shook his head. "No, they're alright."

There was silence between the two of them. Gavin slowly reached forward and picked up his mug, carefully lifting it to his lips and taking a sip. His eyes widened just a tiny bit.

"Perfect." He sounded surprised.

Ryan shrugged his shoulders. "You've never changed your recipe."

The silence returned and Ryan didn't touch his tea; he was too preoccupied with how small Gavin looked in his clothes, how fragile. It was odd to see him this way when he was so used to the other’s usually animated personality. He worried that something else was wrong. Perhaps he was embarrassed about messing up his job.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Again, Gavin just shook his head. "I'm ok."

"Gav, it's alright that things didn't go the way you planned, we all fuck up some-"

"I'm sorry."

Ryan was taken aback by the sudden outburst. "What?"

"I'm sorry for coming here so late at night and taking up your time and for being such a bother." The Brit had closed his eyes, mouth running a mile a minute. "It's your day off and I've absolutely buggered it-"

It was Ryan's turn to interrupt. "Gavin, seriously, it's fine. I really don't mind." When the lad didn't look up, Ryan reached out to gently tuck his finger under his chin and lifted up his face. Green eyes met blue as he finally opened his eyes. "I'd rather you come here and wake me up than stay outside in the rain with a wound like that."

Gavin's eyes were filled with confusion. "But why go through all this effort when you could have just called someone?"

At this point, Ryan was fed up; he couldn't hold it back anymore, whatever the feeling was in his chest that begged to be let out. He wasn't going to let Gavin devalue himself anymore.

"Because I care about you, you idiot!" He hadn't meant to say it so loudly but once those words were out, he couldn't stop more from coming. He lowered his voice and slid closer to Gavin. "You mean something to me, ok? A lot. Hell, probably more than is healthy at this point. I want to take care of you, don't you get that? You're – important. To me."

It all came out in a long stream of words and finally, _finally_ Ryan understood that feeling in his gut: he loved Gavin. He was _in love_ with Gavin. How had he not realized it before? It was so obvious now. He might have burst out in laughter if it wasn't for the dumbfounded look on the lad's face.

"Oh."

Ryan was prepared for rejection, prepared for Gavin to say 'nice joke, Rye' and finish his tea. He was ready for the inevitable heartache. But it never came. Instead, Gavin set his mug down and slowly placed a hand on the side of the gent’s face, his touch so so soft. Without thinking, Ryan leaned into his palm. He watched as the expression on Gavin's face changed from one of shock to unreserved joy.

"We're both idiots, aren't we," the younger man said, a soft smile on his lips. "Big, dumb idiots. Michael kept telling me but I never thought – I never dreamed you'd feel the same."

Ryan's heart swelled. "You mean-?"

"Yeah, the feeling's mutual."

It was like the knot building in his gut had loosened in one go and Ryan took the plunge; he leaned in to capture Gavin's lips in his own in a kiss he hadn’t known he’d wanted so badly. Gavin's one hand remained on his face while the other made its way to tangle in the hairs at the nape of his neck. Ryan responded in kind, moving even closer and grabbing the front of the lad's hoodie ( _my hoodie, my clothes, my Gavin_ ) to pull him in. Gavin shifted to straddle him so he could sit on his lap, hood slipping off his head as he deepened the kiss. Ryan could feel a flinch from the younger man but it didn’t stop him.

Eventually, Gavin broke off and leaned back, eyes staring into Ryan's. "Is it stupid to say I love you?"

"No," Ryan replied, laugh deep in his chest.

"Good, because I’m not taking that back."

There was no way Ryan could hide the smile on his face.

Gavin touched their foreheads together. "Thank you for taking care of me."

"Any time."

Never in his wildest dreams had Ryan ever thought he'd be in this position. He’d never recognized his feelings for what they were and now he was desperate to explore them, to find out how deep they went and how much they mirrored Gavin's. But for now, he was content to focus on the way his heart rate increased with the way Gavin's mouth traveled down his jaw to his throat. Let the lovey-dovey stuff come later.

Their tea sat on the table, all but forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks of course to [shineelocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineelocket) and [wefall-nomore](https://wefall-nomore.tumblr.com) for being amazing betas <3
> 
> This was completely self-indulgent and I regret absolutely none of it. I wrote it mid writing another long fic; I needed a fluffy break from all the angst I was working through. Is it short and cheesy? Yes. Was it written for catharsis? Absolutely. Am I going to write more fluff after I've finished the new one? HELL YEAH.
> 
> This was fun and I'm filled with more ideas. Hope you enjoyed!


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